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| THIS is the month, and this the happy morn, | |
| Wherein the Son of heaven’s eternal king, | |
| Of wedded maid and virgin mother born, | |
| Our great redemption from above did bring— | |
| For so the holy sages once did sing— | 5 |
| That He our deadly forfeit should release, | |
| And with His Father work us a perpetual peace. | |
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| That glorious form, that light unsufferable, | |
| And that far-beaming blaze of majesty | |
| Wherewith He wont at heaven’s high council-table | 10 |
| To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, | |
| He laid aside; and here with us to be, | |
| Forsook the courts of everlasting day, | |
| And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. | |
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| Say, heavenly muse, shall not thy sacred vein | 15 |
| Afford a present to the infant God? | |
| Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, | |
| To welcome Him to this His new abode— | |
| Now while the heaven, by the sun’s team untrod, | |
| Hath took no print of the approaching light, | 20 |
| And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright? | |
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| See how from far upon the eastern road | |
| The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet! | |
| Oh! run, prevent them with thy humble ode, | |
| And lay it lowly at His blessed feet; | 25 |
| Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet, | |
| And join thy voice unto the angel choir, | |
| From out His secret altar touched with hallowed fire. | |
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THE HYMN It was the winter wild | |
| While the heaven-born child | 30 |
| All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies— | |
| Nature, in awe to Him, | |
| Had doffed her gaudy trim, | |
| With her great Master so to sympathize; | |
| It was no season then for her | 35 |
| To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. | |
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| Only with speeches fair | |
| She woos the gentle air | |
| To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, | |
| And on her naked shame, | 40 |
| Pollute with sinful blame, | |
| The saintly veil of maiden white to throw— | |
| Confounded that her maker’s eyes | |
| Should look so near upon her foul deformities. | |
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| But He, her fears to cease, | 45 |
| Sent down the meek-eyed Peace; | |
| She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding | |
| Down through the turning sphere, | |
| His ready harbinger, | |
| With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; | 50 |
| And waving wide her myrtle wand, | |
| She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. | |
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| Nor war, or battle’s sound, | |
| Was heard the world around— | |
| The idle spear and shield were high up hung; | 55 |
| The hookèd chariot stood | |
| Unstained with hostile blood; | |
| The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng; | |
| And kings sat still with awful eye, | |
| As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by. | 60 |
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| But peaceful was the night | |
| Wherein the prince of light | |
| His reign of peace upon the earth began; | |
| The winds, with wonder whist, | |
| Smoothly the waters kissed, | 65 |
| Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, | |
| Who now hath quite forgot to rave, | |
| While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave. | |
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| The stars with deep amaze | |
| Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, | 70 |
| Bending one way their precious influence; | |
| And will not take their flight | |
| For all the morning light, | |
| Or Lucifer that often warned them thence; | |
| But in their glimmering orbs did glow | 75 |
| Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. | |
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| And though the shady gloom | |
| Had given day her room, | |
| The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, | |
| And hid his head for shame, | 80 |
| As his inferior flame | |
| The new-enlightened world no more should need; | |
| He saw a greater sun appear | |
| Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear. | |
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| The shepherds on the lawn, | 85 |
| Or e’er the point of dawn, | |
| Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; | |
| Full little thought they then | |
| That the mighty Pan | |
| Was kindly come to live with them below; | 90 |
| Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, | |
| Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. | |
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| When such music sweet | |
| Their hearts and ears did greet | |
| As never was by mortal finger strook— | 95 |
| Divinely-warbled voice | |
| Answering the stringed noise, | |
| As all their souls in blissful rapture took; | |
| The air, such pleasure loath to lose, | |
| With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close. | 100 |
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| Nature, that heard such sound | |
| Beneath the hollow round | |
| Of Cynthia’s seat the airy region thrilling, | |
| Now was almost won | |
| To think her part was done, | 105 |
| And that her reign had here its last fulfilling; | |
| She knew such harmony alone | |
| Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union. | |
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| At last surrounds their sight | |
| A globe of circular light, | 110 |
| That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed; | |
| The helmèd cherubim | |
| And sworded seraphim | |
| Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, | |
| Harping in loud and solemn choir, | 115 |
| With unexpressive notes, to heaven’s new-born heir— | |
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| Such music as (’tis said) | |
| Before was never made, | |
| But when of old the sons of morning sung, | |
| While the Creator great | 120 |
| His constellations set, | |
| And the well-balanced world on hinges hung, | |
| And cast the dark foundations deep, | |
| And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. | |
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| Ring out, ye crystal spheres! | 125 |
| Once bless our human ears, | |
| If ye have power to touch our senses so; | |
| And let your silver chime | |
| Move in melodious time, | |
| And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow; | 130 |
| And with your ninefold harmony | |
| Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. | |
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| For if such holy song | |
| Inwrap our fancy long, | |
| Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; | 135 |
| And speckled vanity | |
| Will sicken soon and die, | |
| And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould; | |
| And hell itself will pass away, | |
| And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. | 140 |
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| Yea, truth and justice then | |
| Will down return to men, | |
| Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, | |
| Mercy will sit between, | |
| Throned in celestial sheen, | 145 |
| With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; | |
| And heaven, as at some festival, | |
| Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. | |
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| But wisest fate says No— | |
| This must not yet be so; | 150 |
| The babe yet lies in smiling infancy | |
| That on the bitter cross | |
| Must redeem our loss, | |
| So both Himself and us to glorify. | |
| Yet first to those ye chained in sleep | 155 |
| The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, | |
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| With such a horrid clang | |
| As on Mount Sinai rang, | |
| While the red fire and smould’ring clouds outbrake; | |
| The aged earth, aghast | 160 |
| With terror of that blast, | |
| Shall from the surface to the centre shake— | |
| When, at the world’s last session, | |
| The dreadful judge in middle air shall spread his throne. | |
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| And then at last our bliss | 165 |
| Full and perfect is— | |
| But now begins: for from this happy day | |
| The old dragon, under ground | |
| In straiter limits bound, | |
| Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway, | 170 |
| And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, | |
| Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. | |
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| The oracles are dumb: | |
| No voice or hideous hum | |
| Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving; | 175 |
| Apollo from his shrine | |
| Can no more divine, | |
| With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving; | |
| No nightly trance, or breathèd spell, | |
| Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. | 180 |
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| The lonely mountains o’er, | |
| And the resounding shore, | |
| A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; | |
| From haunted spring, and dale | |
| Edged with poplar pale, | 185 |
| The parting genius is with sighing sent; | |
| With flower-inwoven tresses torn | |
| The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. | |
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| In consecrated earth, | |
| And on the holy hearth, | 190 |
| The lares and lemures moan with midnight plaint; | |
| In urns and altars round | |
| A drear and dying sound | |
| Affrights the flamens at their service quaint; | |
| And the chill marble seems to sweat, | 195 |
| While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat. | |
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| Peor and Baälim | |
| Forsake their temples dim, | |
| With that twice-battered god of Palestine; | |
| And moonèd Ashtaroth, | 200 |
| Heaven’s queen and mother both, | |
| Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine; | |
| The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn— | |
| In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. | |
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| And sullen Moloch fled, | 205 |
| Hath left in shadows dread | |
| His burning idol all of blackest hue; | |
| In vain, with cymbal’s ring, | |
| They call the grisly king, | |
| In dismal dance about the furnace blue; | 210 |
| The brutish gods of Nile as fast— | |
| Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis—haste. | |
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| Nor is Osiris seen | |
| In Memphian grove or green, | |
| Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud, | 215 |
| Nor can he be at rest | |
| Within his sacred chest— | |
| Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud; | |
| In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark, | |
| The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark. | 220 |
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| He feels from Juda’s land | |
| The dreaded infant’s hand— | |
| The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyne; | |
| Nor all the gods beside | |
| Longer dare abide— | 225 |
| Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine; | |
| Our babe, to show His God-head true, | |
| Can in His swaddling-bands control the damnèd crew. | |
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| So, when the sun in bed, | |
| Curtained with cloudy red, | 230 |
| Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, | |
| The flocking shadows pale | |
| Troop to the infernal jail— | |
| Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; | |
| And the yellow-skirted fays | 235 |
| Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. | |
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| But see the virgin blest | |
| Hath laid her babe to rest— | |
| Time is our tedious song should here have ending; | |
| Heaven’s youngest teemèd star | 240 |
| Hath fixed her polished car, | |
| Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; | |
| And all about the courtly stable | |
| Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable. | |
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